A Manhattan friend stopped the writer on Fifth avenue last week, and in a voice somewhat strained and condescending asked the direct route over to the Brooklyn Academy of Music. "I know more," this friend continued, "about Peking and Calcutta than about Brooklyn, and no doubt you will think me a rather queer citizen of New York for admitting such ignorance." For the thousandth (or is it the ten thousandth) time the writer served as guide by indicating that the Academy of Music in Brooklyn may be easily reached by taking a Brooklyn express in the subway to the Atlantic avenue station, which is the Brooklyn terminal of the subway. The Academy of Music is just one square from this station. The friend wanted to find the Brooklyn Academy of Music last Thursday evening, where he and many other New Yorkers went to hear Busoni, who, by the way, did not play the program announced in the Weekly Bulletin issued by the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences. The great pianist appeared under the auspices of the Institute. His offerings for the night included these numbers:
Transcription, Chaconne....................Bach-Busoni
Sonata No. 2....................................Chopin
Variations, op. 1...............................Schumann
Toccata, op. 7..................................Schumann
Thirteenth Rhapsody.........................Liszt
Caprice, Valse..................................Liszt
Der Erlkonig.....................................Schubert-Liszt
Hungarian March..............................Schubert-Liszt
Busoni's virtuosity opened up new worlds to bewildered eyes and ears as they saw and heard his magical fingers play his own brilliant transcription of the Bach "Chaconne," the Schumann "Variations," the Schumann toccata, the Liszt numbers and Liszt transcriptions. It was a night of tonal numbers, and after witnessing what Busoni did without effort, ordinary mortals concluded that they knew little or nothing about what may be done on the piano. The only music of the night that called for no display of technic was the "Funeral March" in the Chopin sonata in B flat minor. In the performance of this the luscious tone of the player was revealed, but for the remainder the atmosphere was surcharged with electrical effects. The thirteenth rhapsody of Liszt, so seldom played, proved something of a novelty. It is unlike the familiar rhapsodies; the "Hungarian" march, which followed the "Erl Konig," is far more "gypsy" in form. The delighted audience recalled Busoni many times, but he seemed loath to respond with encores; as it was, he played but two, a Chopin nocturne after the rhapsody, and, lastly, the chromatic galop of Liszt.
